Michael Lapihuska, a former Anniston resident, is facing a jail sentence and two years probation for bringing his prescription with him from California to Alabama when he came home for the holidays last December. The problem — his prescription was for marijuana.

Lapihuska was arrested Dec. 15, when a police officer stopped him on McClellan Boulevard near Walmart for hitch hiking. The officer searched him, found a prescription bottle of marijuana in his pocket and asked Lapihuska to take it out.

When Lapihuska complied, he was arrested for possession despite the doctor’s recommendation he presented to the officer.

“I understand that I broke the law, but the law was wrong,” Lapihuska said. “If I would have had OxyContin or Xanax, morphine, anything like that, and walking down the street, the police would have just gave me my prescriptions back and let me walk.”